Everything great in the world is done by neurotics; they alone founded our religions and created our masterpieces. ~Marcel Proust

Monday, June 16, 2014

Can Cold Temperatures or Brown Fat, Lead to Weight Loss?

I noted a weird thing today. I thought I'd throw this up and see what you guys thought.

Brown fat? Ever heard of that? Don't you dare say...Well, I knew this big Samoan once...I run a family blog here in the trailer park.

All thru May and the 10th of June, as reported here in "41 Days of Hell", I did the meat and cheese diet (Atkins) which included upwards of 36 eggs per week.

On June 9th I weighed 252. On Jun 11th, just before taking my Iditarod motorcycle ride as noted in "Donner, Party of One" I weighed 254. Today, I stepped on the scales at 247. Today marks the first day since my return. Not only is that weight loss significant but it occurred on my gym's scales which are conveniently slanted upwards 5 pounds or so. I did not eat particularly good or bad on the 4 day trip and I did not exercise. As I mulled over the possibilities and what happened- it dawned on me that I was freezing my ass off most of the trip. Three days of at least 3 hours (5 hrs. on day 2) of bone chilling temps on the bike.

It begged the question. Could all of that freezing my ass off- have the unexpected benefit of weight loss?

14 comments:

Interesting that you ask. I have *an* answer. Probably not *the* answer.

You consume energy to keep your body warm. That's a no brainer. That means if your calorie intake remains the same buy you need to work harder to keep warner you will drop weight.

Here is the catch, or so I believe. When the body gets cold it triggers something deep inside from our caveman days that says "hey, it's cold. Let's slow down our metabolism and start storing fat so we have a reserve. Never know when we might catch our next wooly mammoth"

So, it's catch 22. You drop some pounds but you gear yourself up to retain more.

How were you rehydrating during your idiot on a bike in the cold maneuvers because when iced up as your were we tend to drink less thus we dehydrate. I predict you'll be back to 252-4 shortly. Cheers dreamer..

It's called "cold thermogenesis." (CT) People are intentionally using cold to boost metabolism.

Google "Jack Kruse," he's got a whole sub-forum of people into this stuff. They take ice baths, wear minimal clothing in winter, etc., to mimic our ancestors' lifestyles.

I mentioned the "Cool Fat Burner" above, I first saw them on that forum. Look at the experiments they've carried out using their cooling vest. (bunch of YouTube videos documenting the experiments in the lab) The guy has more or less proven that CT works.

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